Letters.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

E Pluribus Umbrage

Tim Cavanaugh, author of "E Pluribus Umbrage" (December), finds it amusing that in the midst of the church's priest scandal, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights "alerted its 300,000 members to a grave threat to the faith: a King of the Hill episode in which cartoon housewife Peggy impersonates a nun."

This makes it sound as if we object to Sister Act portrayals, but anyone who has really followed the Catholic League knows this is bunk. Our objection to this episode was the vile way in which the Eucharist was treated. Cavanaugh omits this because it would interfere with the point he wants to make.

On a more important note, Cavanaugh says that our petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) protesting Opie and Anthony shows we really do believe in censorship. This is nonsense. Congress long ago established the FCC, and no one has ever ruled it to be a censorial body. Indeed, when we succeeded in getting the show kicked off the air, we immediately requested the FCC not to go through with yanking the license of the station.

Perhaps the most telling comment by Cavanaugh is his remark that "the most endearing thing about Bill Donohue is that he genuinely seems to enjoy hurting people." It would be more accurate to say I enjoy giving it to intellectual jackasses. Cavanaugh will escape my wrath because he is no intellectual.

William A. Donohue

President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

New York, NY

Kudos for Tim Cavanaugh's well-written piece on the subject of stereotyping. He makes some cogent points.

However, as a teacher and longtime Italian-American historian, I did spot an error. When David Chase "lampooned" activists in a recent episode of The Sopranos, he wasn't poking fun at the alleged absurdity of rampant Italian stereotyping in Hollywood. He was malting fun of the activists personally, out of spite. Their crime? No, not a sense of victimization, which they have never claimed for themselves; rather, their acknowledgment of the constant degradation of the Italian-American image in the media, which extends far beyond The Sopranos to TV sitcoms, advertising, theater, pulp fiction, newspapers, etc.

I find it amazing that Cavanaugh isn't amazed that over 800 films produced about Italians since 1928 portray us as the unofficial scum of the country. Does he actually buy into these images? Is he also a secret fan of The Sopranos, with its Grand Guignol theatrics? And doesn't this constant mocking of Italian-American culture prove that discrimination doesn't...